



^^ 



0)^^^J^-^cNJiiM^yv\ 



I 




LC 





/ 



THE PLACE 



OF 



University Extension. 



BY 

SIIVION N. F»ATTEN, 

University of Pennsylvania. 



Reprinted from University Extension, February, iS 



THE PLACE 



OF 



2o'/ 



University Extension. 



SIMON N. FLATTEN, 

University of Pennsylvania. 



Reprinted from University Extension, February, i6 



ks\: oi. \ 




^^ 



THK PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 



WHEN a new movement in education knocks at our 
door and demands recognition as an educational 
agency, it is natural and right that its adherents should 
justify its claims. Too often a seemingly new movement 
proves to be only a variety of some old agency dressed in 
a new garb, or what is worse, a subordinate element in 
education, pushed forward into a prominence which its 
intrinsic merits do not deserve. The new education has 
been heralded numberless times ; in fact, it is always with 
us, and yet the predicted revolution has not come, and we 
are still following the traditional lines of education with 
such slight exceptions, that it would be difficult to enumer- 
ate any clearly defined principle which our age has brought 
forth. 

It is easy to see many changes in the educational world. 
The interest in education has greatly increased ; the public 
are much more willing to support educational projects, both 
by taxation and by private gifts ; the public schools have 
become a powerful means of elevating all classes of society ; 
technical and secondary schools are abundant and efficient ; 
and the great ,uaiv;^rsitiesj State and 'private, ^ have acquired 
an influence, w^ic|i ;su'pl3e':i[n3j;|t^tjpns p^e^^"^ before exercised. 
While recognizing these improvements, and many more that 
could be nanlj^d,' /I' 'sta^lt affl^rip' that ouifja^fe has not been 
original in its 'fdethods khd ^tbat'it'has not 'departed widely 
from the educational traditions of the past. We have, to be 
sure, in a groping, unconscious way made many important 
modifications in our educational system, but the principles 
upon which they rest have not been enumerated, nor have they 
been j ustified upon grounds in harmony with the spirit through 
which the changes have come. Independent, therefore, of 

(2) 



t 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 3 

the claims of a new agency, demanding recognition, it is 
important to survey anew the various forces active in our 
educational world, and to enumerate more clearly the prin- 
ciples upon which their efficiency depends. 

It would seem an easy matter to determine the leading 
educational agents, and to measure their relative importance. 
The theory of education should classify and discuss them, 
just as the theory of production in political economy presents 
and discusses the agents in production. The history of 
education, too, should be a ready source of material from 
which a comparative study of educational forces can be 
made. But, unfortunately, both the theory and history of 
education in the sense I have indicated are yet to be written. 
There is at hand nothing more than incomplete sketches of 
certain historic epochs in education and of the men who led 
these great movements. Even from an inductive standpoint 
we have no analysis of the leading educational agencies. 
The leading educational institutions have never been com- 
pared, their functions analyzed, and their scope and duties 
defined. The principles of education have not been isolated 
from the inductive material by which they are obscured ; 
still less have they been corrolated, so that broad general- 
izations can be based upon them. The theory of education, 
if such it may be called, is an aggregation of the most mis- 
cellaneous character, a combination of platitudes, adages, 
maxims and traditions of uncertain value mixed with crude 
generalizations, based upon the institutions of a given epoch 
or the tendencies of a given age. The hand of a master has 
never sifted this heterogeneous material, separating theory 
from practice, and thus creating a nucleus about which a 
true theory of education can grow up. 

It is necessary to make this preliminary statement, because 
so many talk and write as if thej'- knew exactly the functions 
of each educational institution, and its relation to other 
recognized institutions, as if they were able to map out the 
whole educational world, and could determine the manner 
in which a new claimant of a portion of the educational field 



4 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

would come into conflict with established agencies for the 
same end. It is hardly necessary to repeat that the data for 
such conclusions are lacking. The public school, the 
academy, the technical school, the college and the university, 
have each worked at their problems in an inductive manner. 
They have shifted their bases, altered their courses, and 
changed the character of their teaching in an independent 
way, dictated by their own necessities, without regard to 
their theoretical relation to other educational agencies. It 
is still a problem to determine just what each of these factors 
in education can undertake best, in how far they conflict 
with or duplicate the work of each other, and whether 
between them all the whole field is covered without any 
gaps which new institutions could fill to the advantage of 
all concerned. 

There is another source of error that must be eliminated 
before a survey of our topic is possible. It is assumed that 
a new organization with a new name must represent a new 
idea, something foreign to the accepted methods ; and hence, 
that the new conflicts with the old, or at least implies a defect 
in the old system through the neglect of some educational 
principle. The defence of the old thus seems to demand an 
opposition to the new, and many are jealous of any new 
movement, largely, because of the implied defects in the 
institutions they have learned to respect and love, and whose 
efficiency seems to be questioned. There must of course, be 
a measure of truth in such charges if the claims of the new 
institution are to be justified, and yet the conflict usually 
lies in a difierent quarter from that in which it appears 
to lie. The new institution usually represents some new 
differentiation of old agencies. The ideas which it empha- 
sizes, are old truths isolated from some of their historical 
surroundings and made prominent and forcible by their new 
setting. Often the apparently new ideas held a dominant place 
in an earlier system of education, but through the necessary 
adjustment to new conditions, new methods came into vogue, 
leaving some important principle in the background until it 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 5 

is again seized upon by a new group of reformers and 
restored to its old position of respect and importance. 

Such changes may easily take place unobserved, because 
of the mingling of two distinct elements in all education — 
the personality and the method of the teacher. In great 
teachers, the first element is so dominant that the second 
becomes absorbed in it ; and for the time being lost sight of. 
Under these conditions a break may easily be made in the 
continuity of method without attracting conscious attention.- 
The disciples of the new teacher follow his methods subser- 
viently, extol them unduly, and assume a much greater 
harmony and continuity between the new and old than 
reall}' exists. It is easy to see how under such circum- 
stances important ideas should sink into obscurity, and 
seem entirely new when they are rediscovered at a later 
period, put into new relations and given a new name. 

Another source of confusion is due to the undefined, 
shadowy boundary of the educational field. All knowledge 
is not preserved or transmitted to succeeding generations 
through the recognized educational institutions. It is often 
overlooked that much, if not the greater part of the acquired 
knowledge of a given age comes to it not from the profes- 
sional teacher, but from the many other educational agencies 
by which the citizen is surrounded. The home, the church, 
the newspaper, the club, social organizations, social inter- 
course, and a multitude of other agencies help to perpetuate 
the knowledge of the race and to determine the standard of 
each generation. These agencies, moreover, are never static. 
They are subject to the struggle for existence, and are con- 
stantly modified by the dynamic flow of the society of which 
they are organs. They grow at the expense of each other, 
and force new modifications through which they become 
more sharply differentiated and better adjusted. The pur- 
pose which one of them serves may in time be transferred to 
another, and its own existence be justified by performing new 
duties or at least some old duties in a new and more efficient 
way. 



6 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

Take, for example, the development of the home in modern 
society. It has become a highly diflferentiated institution, 
serving aesthetic rather than physical ends. It suggests 
comfort and ease rather than food and shelter. A wife is a 
comfort maker more than a bread maker, and children are 
supported from love instead of from duty. These changes have 
cut down the size of families by excluding dependents and 
productive laborers. They have made the home exclusive, 
brought parent and children into more sympathetic rela- 
tions, cut out the disciplinary aspect of home life, and reduced 
its strictly educational function, or, at least, turned it into 
new channels where little conscious influence was exerted in 
earlier times. 

Similar changes have taken place in the church. It has, 
through the evolution of society, lost many of its former 
functions. At an early date the administration of justice 
became a function of the State, and later education became 
secularized . The protestant reformation took from the church 
its cosmopolitan character. It ceased to be the force which 
bound nations and communities together, and restrained 
egoistic action in international affairs. It took on, at least 
in protestant nations where communities were split up by 
denominational differences, a more intense social nature. It 
exerts its influence chiefly upon individual families and 
classes, binding their members by stronger ties, and holding 
them up to a higher standard than could have been impressed 
upon the whole community or nation. It has thus elevated 
our ideals, purified our life, and strengthened the moral 
standards, but it has lost much of that broad, unspecialized 
influence which the early church exerted over our whole 
civilization. In this way the influence of the church over 
individuals and certain sections of society has been strength- 
ened, and through them is more powerful in moulding society 
as a whole than ever before. It is not, however, a national 
institution, giving force and character to national life. Na- 
tions no longer appeal to their God, their church and their 
reUgion to arouse their citizens to heroic action, except in a 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 7 

formal way. They now resort to economic, political, or even 
class motives to make the action of the people harmonious 
and energetic. This educational influence of the old national 
church has been lost, and the present church in its new form, 
while serving other higher purposes much better, leaves a 
gap in religious activity in which little or no work is done. 

In fact, both the family and the church, have ceased to be 
national institutions, and have become social agencies for 
doing a very important but highly specialized social work. 
The broader field which they have vacated has been partially 
supplied by other agencies. The club, the secret society, 
the many kinds of associations based on ties which bind men 
of similar temperament and habits together, the trades 
unions and other labor organizations, which appeal to indus- 
trial instincts and motives, have each secured a place for 
themselves, partly by occupying the field vacated by the 
family and church, and partly by ministering to new wants 
which arise in a highly differentiated society. The pulpit has 
its scope limited by the appearance of the newspaper, the 
periodical, the lecturer and the author. The family has 
had its field narrowed by the Sunday School, the kinder- 
garten, the manual training school, and other forms of public 
education. Each new institution has intensified the func- 
tional activity of every other institution, and created a need 
of new institutions to fill up the newly discovered gaps in 
the social and educational world. 

A new educational movement is not an isolated phenome- 
non, but comes in as a part of a great social upheaval. 
Social institutions are the means by which a society seeks to 
adjust itself to its environment. If this environment were 
unchanging, the adjustment would soon be complete. The 
environment is not wholly objective, but depends upon the 
wants of the society seeking adjustment and changes as they 
change.* Each new environment, with its corresponding 

* Patten, " Theory of Dynamic Economics." Chap. VII. 



8 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

Standard of life creates a dissatisfaction with old institu- 
tions, and awakens a desire for new ones more in harmony 
with the complex conditions of the new society. The home, 
the church, the school, the many social and industrial organ- 
izations, the State itself, as well as the customs, habits and 
instincts which grow up around them are modified and 
differentiated so as to allow new institutions of co-ordinate 
rank to supplement them, and thus increase the adjustment 
of society to its environment. 

Bach added complexity of the environment, bringing with 
it new social institutions and a rise of the standard of life, 
makes existing educational institutions inadequate, tends to 
differentiate them, and thus permits the rise of new institu- 
tions to supplement those already active. The larger 
demand for educational work arises mainly from the increased 
consciousness of harmonious consumption and of the neces- 
sity of ejecting inharmonious elements from it.* If progress 
meant simply isolated additions to social welfare, with no 
elimination or subordination of strong feelings, the type of 
our civilization would be much simpler, and the need of 
conscious education much reduced. As it is, each age, if 
progressive, must tear down and rebuild much of the sub- 
jective environment ; f instincts, habits and customs must be 
reformed, and the educational institutions revised and 
extended to meet the new conditions. 

I shall not take time to prove that the great social re- 
organization of this century has fulfilled all these conditions 
for a new educational movement. If the changes of the 
last century created the need of a Rousseau and a Pestalozzi 
the more thoroughgoing revolution of this century demands 
a still more complete upheaval and overthrow of educational 
routine and tradition. While there has been a great exten- 
sion of education to all classes, the content and method of 
instruction have not been changed and the evils are increased 

. * Patten, " The Economic Courses of Moral Progress." Annals of the AmericuD 
Academy of Political and Social Science. September, 1892. 

t The term " subjective environment " is explained on page 20, 



THB PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 9 

very much by the larger numbers whom this type ot educa- 
tion reaches. So firmly have the conventional ideas of 
education been rooted in our minds that the educational 
history of the race has been distorted and the reliance on 
certain questionable doctrines is so Complete as to obscure 
and narrow the whole field of education. Educational 
theory has been displaced by the maxims of the art of 
forcing boys to become premature men. It is the art ot 
impressing facts and details upon the growing mind rather 
than vital principles and related knowledge. Race knowl- 
edge, race traditions, and race ideals have been lost sight of, 
and adult education, upon which they depend for vitality 
has been eliminated from the field of educational activity. 
We emphasize and support the school for boys, but neglect 
those broader educational forces which sustain and elevate 
the normal and intellectual tone of the adult population. 

This concept of boy or school education is a recent inven- 
tion. Among primitive nations, almost all the education is 
for the adult. The child participates in it only as a member 
of the community attracted by prominent features of social 
life. Race knowledge, traditions and history are preserved 
by the old rather than by the young. Education thus 
belongs to the period after and not before the active portion 
of a man's life. 

In Homer, we have a typical case of an early educator. 
His hearers were not mere children, but the men and women 
of the active period of life. They were aroused and held 
by an interest in the events narrated, and made better citizens 
by their deeper knowledge of the great epochs of national 
history, grouped in a natural order and made vivid by the 
emphasis on the stirring facts. Homer could, with truth, 
be called the first extensionist. He was an itinerant teacher 
depending upon popular interest in the history of his race 
for his support. He intensified the national life by his vivid 
pictures of past events and thus helped to form the national . 
character of the Grecian people. All nations have not been 
so fortunate as to have a Homer to make their traditions an 



lO UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

essential part of the education of every race ; but, at least, 
humble workers filled with the same spirit and using the 
same methods have made the traditions and ideals of each 
successful race so vivid and instinctive as to be the means of 
sustaining the national spirit under conditions where an 
appeal to other motives would fail. 

Even in the later periods of Grecian history education was 
largely confined to the mature portion of the community. 
Public questions occupied the dormant place in the social 
life of the Athenian. The education which prepared for 
political life was received in public places by adults in ways 
not dissimilar from those through which the American 
citizen gets his knowledge of national events. Socrates 
taught in the market places and his hearers were beyond 
what we now regard as the school age. The later and better 
organized schools of philosophy were places of retreat for 
the mature and not an isolating environment for boys. 

This education of the adults was made possible through 
the separation of society into classes. The slaves did the 
work and the citizen was in many respects a man of leisure, 
whose time was free for the purpose of self-culture. Educa- 
tion was thus a recreation and a pleasure, not a discipline. 
It was an end in itself and not a preparation for something 
beyond. 

The social conditions of modern times destroyed this ideal 
of the ancient world. The great industrial changes created 
new ideals of life through which the boy instead of the man 
became the centre of educational activity. The prime cause 
this change was the breaking down of the privileges of 
the aristocracy by which a portion of society had leisure 
during their mature years, coupled with the rise of the 
industrial classes into an active participation in national life. 
The adult population engaged in bread-earning occupations, 
and gave to them so much time and energy that education 
ceased to be a matter of conscious consideration. The 
intensifying of business life leads to an intensifying of the 
pleasures of the few remaining leisure hours. Amusements 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. n 

tend to displace education, crowding it into an earlier period 
of life before the child is of much use in the industrial 
world. 

Two important events helped these industrial changes in 
forcing the child into the school. The first of these was the 
invention of writing and printing. Here was an occupation 
well fitted for the child. He would learn to read and write 
before the period of industrial activity began and thus the 
valuable time of the adult would be used for other purposes. 
The second event was the revival of learning at the end of 
the middle ages. The ancient languages were the only 
storehouses of learning. The I,atin also was the best and 
in many fields the only medium for the exchange of ideas. 
The ancient languages thus became indispensable for culture 
and it was advantageous to use the' boy's time in their 
acquisition. Language study is well fitted for boys and its 
necessity under these conditions did much to fix in the 
minds of the people the notion that 'education is a task for 
boys and not a recreation for men. 

This new concept of education was strengthened by cer- 
tain ideas prevalent in the religious world. The school and 
the church were parts of one institution, and educational 
ideas were colored by the ascetic notions prevalent in 
religious circles. The doctrine of natural depravity created 
a demand for an isolating environment for the boy at school, 
and a discipline to correct the evil tendencies natural to 
youth. The school was not made a vital part of each com- 
munity, but a distant place to which the boy was sent and 
in which he was free from the strong temptations of the 
external world. At a time when isolation from the world 
was deemed necessary for moral progress, and pain and 
privation the best means of creating a noble, lofty character, 
it was easy to remodel educational ideas, so as to emphasize 
these elements. The church attempted to form the char- 
acters of boys on the plan it used to reform men. Thus 
certain ideas secured a dominant place in modern education 
and have not yet been displaced although our religious life, 



X2 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

from which they were taken, has been modified by the 
quickening influence of higher ideals. 

The static condition of educational theory is largely due 
to the need of extending the advantage of public schools to 
all classes. Reformers have been desirous of giving to the 
lowest classes of society the advantages which were in 
earlier times the exclusive privilege of the higher classes. 
The lower classes, however, enter into the industrial life 
earlier than do the higher classes, and their education must 
be finished earlier if it is not to interfere with their indus- 
trial activities. The temptation to cram isolated facts is 
increased since they are the best means of giving to the 
child the appearance of mature thinking. Each extension 
of popular education has narrowed its scope and emphasized 
its mechanical features so as to utilize more fully the period 
of the boy's life before he becomes a worker. The conscious 
endeavor of educators has been directed toward forcing 
boys to acquire facts and ideas at a little earlier period than 
that in which they would be acquired through direct contact 
with nature and society. The result is that boys' education 
is badly overdone. If the eighteenth century reformer 
sought to isolate the boy from society, and let nature educate 
him, the reformers of to-day should be willing to let nature 
keep the boy as long as possible, and strive to educate the 
man. 

The rise of the modern universities opened up new avenues 
for adult education. There was at first no demand for pre- 
vious training and hence an opportunity was afforded every 
mature person to extend his knowledge in any direction. 
These conditions could not remain permanent, because of 
two disturbing factors. The rise of the boys' schools took 
the elementary work from the universities and caused them 
to set a high standard for admission. Of even greater import- 
ance was the growth of a purely scientific spirit of study 
due to the rise of the modern physical sciences. These stu- 
dies encouraged the growth of specialization, through which 
the closely related bodies of knowledge known to the ancient 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 1 3 

world were broken up into many isolated parts. The student 
now acquired a definite, detailed knowledge of a narrow 
field, and a power of using this knowledge in the useful 
arts. A new ideal of scholarship was acquired through these 
means, which altered the character of work, not only in the 
physical sciences, but also in language, literature, and phi- 
losophy. The specialist has displaced the savant of the older 
times who emphasized the study of man, and the relation of 
all kinds of knowledge to him, and to the society of which 
he is a part. 

While the contrast I desire to make between these two 
■classes of men is clear, the distinction is hard to describe, 
because of the lack of good terms. We all know what a 
specialist is, and what are his strong and weak points, but 
the other type of scholar, and the attitude from which he 
views life lack good terras to distinguish them. We recog- 
nize him in several particular relations as social philosopher, 
moralist, or reformer, but this type of scholar has been dis- 
placed by the specialist so completely that there seems little 
need of a term to describe him. That the term scholar now 
means only a specialist shows how fully the ideal of uni- 
versity life has strayed from what it was even a century ago. 

Perhaps the distinction I desire to emphasize can be made 
clear by presenting it in another aspect. A knowledge of 
facts and relations can be retained in three ways. The lowest 
form is memorized knowledge which holds isolated facts 
together by a purely mechanical association. The remem- 
brance of a list of kings, or of the spelling of given words is of 
this character. The second form is reasoned knowledge. In 
the form of the syllogism, two ideas are bound together by 
means of a third idea. This kind of knowledge is serial. 
Idea follows idea through their relation to some third idea. 
The feeling of certainty in a syllogistic argument is derived 
from an external principle, not a part of the phenomena 
present in the mind when the feeling of certanty arises. A 
series of ideas, only a part of which are in the consciousness 
at one time, cannot of itself create the feeling of reality which 



14 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

a syllogistic argument produces in minds suited for such 
reasoning. In such arguments, the related ideas are stripped 
of every concrete relation except their serial order. There 
is, therefore, a complete divorcement of all elements of 
feeling and reliance on a single principle to produce 
conviction. 

This power to isolate ideas from feelings and to think of 
them as only a part of a single series bound together by an 
external principle is possessed by different individuals in 
very different degrees. Few, if any, can break up all their 
related ideas and reform them into a simple objective series, 
isolated from all the feelings which would naturally create 
other relations between them. Most persons have this power 
to a very limited degree, and in their case conviction usually 
arises from some other source. With them, conclusions 
based on formal logic, do not have the weight given to facts 
standing in more concrete relation to one another, through 
which much stronger feelings are awakened. 

It is often assumed that this serial reasoned knowledge is 
the highest type and the only form that knowledge can take 
if complete. Even if this be admitted, it is still necessary to 
correlate it with, and to distinguish it from, the more common 
type of reasoning through which the average man acquires 
his knowledge. I call this third kind of knowledge visual- 
ized knowledge, to contrast it with the serial knowledge due 
to formal reasoning. I call it visualized from its most promi- 
nent characteristic, and not because this is its only form. 
The touch, for example, gives us a simple series of phe- 
nomena from which all related knowledge must be inferred. 
The sight, however, places many objects in juxtaposition in 
one perception and enables us to see many relations which 
could be only inferred by the touch. The space relations 
given by the sight are more complex and concrete than are 
the simple time relations given by the touch. Visualized 
knowledge stands in much the same relation to serial 
reasoned knowledge as that in which space relations stand 
to time relations. Ideas when visualized assume a more or 



THE PI,ACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 1 5 

less concrete form and are so definitely related to one another 
that they can appear simultaneously in consciousness. They 
thus form a related unit and have an air of reality which 
reasoned truths cannot have. 

Some simple illustrations will make my meaning clear. 
The success of the astronomical system of Copernicus 
depended not on the law of gravitation and its necessary 
inferences, but on the possibility of getting the average man 
to picture the definite relations which this system pre- 
supposes. The revolution of the world on its axis continued 
unreal until the individual could picture such a revolution 
without any disturbance of the concrete relations which 
exist on the surface of the earth. It was this concrete 
related picture of the relation of the earth to the sun, and 
not the possible inferences from the law of gravitation which 
brought a state of mind open to conviction. Only when it 
became possible to picture with equal vividness the two 
systems of astronomy could the reasoned evidence based on 
the law of gravitation have its due weight and create 
conviction.* 

The theory of rent, as enunciated by Ricardo, is a bold, 
brilliant piece of reasoning, and yet, but few of those who 
read of it were convinced. The writings of Heur>' George 
do not differ materially from those of Ricardo in their reason- 
ing about rent. By the former, however, the theor}' is 
brought into concrete relation with well known and striking 
facts, and a picture is formed of a simple economic world in 
which the theorj^ of rent has the importance of the theory 
of gravitation in the phj'sical world. Thousands have been 
convinced by this simple picture, who would have remained 
unmoved by the strongest of logic severed from any concrete 
relations. 

A similar condition has been a serious obstacle to the 
spread of the doctrine of evolution. The picture of a crea- 
tion is definite and is a type of a common event of every-day 
life. But the picture of an evolution has to the average man 

* In Adam Smith's essay on the " History of Astronomy " this fact is clearly illustrated. 



1 6 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

no concrete reality, ^e cannot correlate it with other prin- 
ciples upon which he is accustomed to act. The evidence 
for an evolution fails to convince him until he can visualize 
it by putting it into definite relations with other parts of his 
concrete knowledge. 

The test of conceivability when made a standard for 
measuring truth depends upon this power to visualize. To 
conceive a truth is to put its different elements into definite 
relations to one another, so that they can merge into one idea 
and have an air of concrete reality like the facts of the 
objective world. Where the power to do this is lacking, no 
conviction follows, no matter how complete may be the 
serial reasoning by which it is enforced. To conceive is to 
visualize — to put ideas into space relations. To reason is to 
put ideas in a serial order, and bind them together by a 
higher principle. These two powers depend upon different 
psychical conditions and cannot be confused without a 
destruction of clear thin kins:. 

These facts are of importance in distinguishing the kind 
of knowledge with which the specialist deals from that which 
is the subject-matter of the social philosopher and other 
thinkers who deal with related bodies of practical knowledge. 
The specialist isolates the different parts of the subject, 
arranges its elements in a serial order, and depends upon 
reasoning alone to show the logical relations which exists 
between them. He studies abnormal conditions, things separ- 
ated from their natural environment by laboratory methods, 
and draws from them inferences as to how they act in the 
complex relations of the real world. The social philosopher, 
the moralist, the reformer, and like thinkers, who dealing 
with practical affairs, desire to create conviction and influence 
the conduct of men, cannot isolate the different parts of 
their subject without destroying the concrete relations which 
give it reality. And if they could, they would by the pro- 
cess, lose power to present the result in a way which would 
convince the public of its importance. It is not the wrong logic 
of the public which hinders their success. It is rather an 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 17 

inability on the part of the public to visualize the facts 
received and thus make it a part of the concrete body of 
objective knowledge, which influences the conduct of each 
individual. Definite relations are not established between 
the new knowledge and the old, so that the new concept of the 
world created by these relations has the same reality as had 
the old concept. 

In the tariff controversy, for example, the difference be- 
tween the free trader and the protectionist does not depend 
in its final analysis upon the facts and the proper inferences 
to be drawn from them. Their opposition comes mainly from 
the different pictures they possess of the industrial world. 
Each visualizes a certain part of the known facts about trade 
and industry' and cannot make certain other facts a part of 
this picture. Change this picture and they change sides in 
the controversy immediately. The sudden conversions on 
this subject of which we often hear, are due not so much to 
logic as to a newly acquired power to picture the industrial 
world in a new way. They now relate all their other knowl- 
edge to this new picture and become zealous partisans of the 
new ideal. 

This race knowledge to which attention has been called 
should not be confused with that unrelated mass of facts 
acquired by each individual to which the name ' ' general 
information ' ' is usually given. In the special environment 
of each individual relations arise, events happen and facts 
are acquired, which are of sufficient importance to be remem- 
bered. They are of value to him alone and are of little or no 
value to other individuals when imparted to them, because 
the same relations do not exist between them and this knowl- 
edge, as existed between it and the first individual. Suppose, 
for example, a person sees a murder. It produces a vivid 
impression upon him never, perhaps, to be forgotten. But 
when he imparts this fact to other persons not directly related 
to the event, it has to them only a transient interest and is 
soon forgotten. Such facts are easily impressed, but the same 
vividness is not easily imparted to others. Gossip, the events 



l8 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

of the day, current history, and the mass of facts relating to 
our social and economic life having an interest to individuals 
and not to society, are forgotten when these individuals cease 
to exist. 

Race knowledge differs from this general information in 
that its parts are related and has, therefore, the same interest 
to the person who receives it as it has to the person who im- 
parts it. Each person finds in it a new source of pleasure. It 
is assimilated by him and becomes a motive for action. Our 
race knowledge on any subject is not due to any one event, 
but is created through a series of events, each of which 
furnishes some element to be transformed into an item of race 
knowledge. A plot, a hero or a social ideal results from the 
blending of many isolated facts and events. Much of each 
group of items is rejected and forgotten, but an element 
remains with which other similar elements can be related and 
formed into a harmonious group. The test of race knowledge 
is the power of the individual to make it objective, and have 
that reality to him which it would have were it an actual 
event of his special environment. 

There are therefore two distinct bodies of knowledge which 
it is the duty of the university to preserve, extend and impart. 
A great mass of scientific facts exists, which are gradually 
collected by specialists in each line of work. Much of this 
knowledge is in isolated forms and cannot be at present cor- 
related, so as to become strictly related truths. The amount 
is also too great for one individual to acquire, and as each 
part demands special training for its acquirement, the citizen 
is shut out from its direct use. It is necessarily the posses- 
sion of a class and can, with propriety, be called class knowl- 
edge. Out of this great body of collected facts, there are 
certain groups of facts, parts of which stand in definite relation 
to one another. They can become related bodies of knowl- 
edge and be put in a concrete form, which will make them 
appeal to the citizen. Not all facts can be so related, because 
at a given time the knowledge of a g^ven subject or its 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. I9 

relations to other subjects may not be clearly seen. Such facts 
must remain class knowledge, and in the hands of specialists. 
The body of related concrete knowledge, however, continu- 
ally grows and when a subject assumes this form it is possible 
to impart it to the public and thus make it a part of the 
active forces in society which create the national character. 
This kind of knowledge may be called race knowledge, 
because it is either a part of the common inheritance of all, 
or might be made so if sufl&cient care was taken to put it in 
the proper form and to impress it upon the public. 

Specialized knowledge and race knowledge are distinct 
and depend upon different conditions for their growth. 
There is no necessary connection between the amount of one 
and the other. They are also possessed by different types of 
men — the scholar, whose life is given to research, and the 
citizen, whose avocation lies in practical affairs. Scholar- 
ship and citizenship are necessary ideals in any progressive 
society. The function of scholarship is to preserve and ex- 
tend knowledge and it has a range wide enough to contain all 
problems which engage human attention. No fact, however 
isolated or disconnected from other facts, can be neglected, 
or is less valuable to the scholar, because at present it has 
no practical importance. The function of citizenship is to 
preserve and defend the institutions, customs, and instincts 
of the race through which social progress is possible. It 
must represent the highest possibilities of social life under 
present conditions and as a means to this end the citizen 
should have a knowledge of all the problems of life, which 
have been well thought out and carefully correlated. The 
level of citizenship depends upon the quantity of race knowl- 
edge — that knowledge which can be visualized and thus 
made a concrete part of the social environment. The citizen 
is moved to action and has his life enriched, not by the 
isolated facts of interest only to the scholar, and having 
weight only when held together by the chains of serial 
reasoning, but by ideals, institutions, and customs due to 
the effects of the race knowledge which he has assimilated 



20 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

and visualized. Specialized knowledge touches the citizen 
at too few points to be a reality to him, but race knowledge, 
when crystallized into social institutions, customs, and ideals, 
is as objective and real to him as any part of his environment. 
He accepts the conditions which flow from these facts as 
readily as he does the effects of the law of gravitation. He 
sees them and their effects as a present reality, and not as 
inferred existences outside of his prospective. It forms the 
subjective environment,* projected by him into the outer 
world and so blended with it as to receive its degree of 
reality. Like the panorama which combines a bit of real 
scenery near at hand with a painted background, so as to 
give the effect of reality to the whole picture, so the visual- 
ized race knowledge, creating the national character, becomes 
as real and objective to the citizen as the soil, mine or shop 
from which he earns his living. 

If I am right in this analysis, the educational field is 
divided into three parts ; preparation of the boy for industrial 
life, preparation of the adult for citizenship, and preparation 
of the scholar for specialized work. The boy and the 

* By the subjective environment, I meanall these habits, customs, institutions and 
race ideals, through which the actions of individuals in a given society are deter- 
mined. Were a Crusoe economy possible — a state of absol ute isolation — an individual 
would find his actions restrained only by the conditions of the objective world. An 
individual in a society with inherited customs, ideals, and institutions, finds in them 
as powerful restraints to his actions as are the restraints of the objective world. 
He accepts and adjusts himself to the one as readily and unconsciously as to the 
other. The bonds which unite a community into one harmonious body are strong 
when each individual forms and projects the same social ideals. They are, of 
course, a creation of the individual, but he acts on them as if they were in reality 
objective. 

It is a common sociological concept to think of a society as an organism. This 
concept is, however, defective. The members of a society act together, not because 
they are parts of an organism having an independent vital force, but because they 
project and visualize the same subjective environment. If the concept of a social- 
organism is a valid explanation of social actions, then we might also conceive the 
objective environment to be an organism and not a mere group of conditions. 
Groups of conditions, creating common actions, however, should be kept distinct 
from the living organisms which come in contact with them. The only organism 
is the individual man. There are, however, two environments, the objective and 
the subjective. The one is independent of man, the other is created by him. Both 
of them influence his conduct and seem to him to have equal objective reality. 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 21 

scholar are provided for, but the citizen is neglected. The 
school teacher and college professor have clearly defined 
duties and recognized means of fulfilling them. What are 
the functions of the third kind of teachers ? How can they 
act efficiently, and what shall we call them? 

The University Extension movement seeks to answer these 
questions and to create a clearly defined agency, co-ordinate 
with other educational forces, which will do for the citizen 
what the school does for the boy, or the university for the 
scholar. It does not desire to make up for the deficiencies 
in boys' education by a kind of night school, nor to give to 
busy adults that specialized knowledge, which is the func- 
tion of the university. However fully the school and uni- 
versity may fulfill their recognized duties, there remains a 
field of equal importance for University Extension. In fact, 
the more fully they perform their functions, the more clearly 
will the field of University Extension be defined, and its 
need felt. Elementary knowledge, specialized knowledge 
and race knowledge are distinct in kind, and require 
special agencies for their preservation, promotion and 
enlargement. 

There is, however, in the present system, no means of 
acquiring race knowledge — that related, practical knowledge, 
which enriches and enlarges the life of the citizen. No 
educational agency impresses the functions of citizenship, or 
has as its conscious end the elevation of national character. 
The school drills the boy in the elements of knowledge, and 
relies upon the indirect effects of this knowledge to mould 
his character. It is assumed that if boys become efficient 
producers, their interests will be with the State and make 
them good citizens. This is a crude utilitarian attitude, 
which has no basis in the facts relating to the history of our 
civilization. Good citizenship is not due to material inter- 
ests, but to the instincts, feelings and ideals which are a 
part of our race inheritance. It is often forgotten that 
political instincts and national character were formed before 
the era of boy education began. Our present educational 



2'2 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

methods are not more than two centuries old, and have 
become efi&cient only in this century. Our political instincts, 
however, are centuries old, and are too firmly inbedded in 
the national character to be materially weakened in so short 
a time by a change in the character of educational methods. 
Our present race knowledge also was largely acquired, and 
its eflFects in social institutions and ideals fully realized 
while adult education was still one of the conscious forces of 
our civilization. 

In earlier times, the university was a potent factor in 
extending race knowledge and forming the national charac- 
ter. The strength of the old college lay in impressing ideals. 
Its best teachers dealt with related bodies of practical 
knowledge more than with the theoretical specialized 
knowledge. Their aim was to show the unity of knowl- 
edge, and separate the details of history and experience 
from their principles and philosophy. They sought for 
heroes and epoch-making events, through which their 
students would be inspired with higher aspirations and 
greater self-sacrifice. Along these lines, Adam Smith, 
Mark Hopkins and other great teachers worked. Such 
work is fitted not merely for college students, but for the 
public as well. The old college professor combined lecturing 
or preaching to the public with instruction for his students, 
and found the same topics and methods efiicient in both 
cases. He really gave a series of Extension lectures, 
although not divided into regular groups of six or twelve. 
He simply clung to one topic until its lessons were 
thoroughly impressed, and passed on to another for like 
treatment. When this work was well done, a series of deep 
impressions was made on the hearers to have an abiding 
effect in after years. 

The complaint about the old college professor has its basis 
in the fact that he was in reality an Extension lecturer, 
dealing with related knowledge, and not with specialized 
knowledge. He lacked that detailed information about 
special subjects which is the strength of the modern specialist. 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 23 

This weakness and the consequent lack of co-ordination 
of university work caused him to be displaced by the more 
efficient but narrower specialist, who fits better into the 
modern scheme for a division of labor in university work. 
Each department of knowledge is now better provided for 
than before, but an important function of university work is 
neglected, seriously marring the completeness of university 
life. 

The clergy also have been an efficient means of extending 
race knowledge and of elevating the standard of citizenship. 
In the good old days of long and frequent sermons, a large 
part of their content was not theological, but practical and 
historical. In an isolated community where books and 
newspapers were rare, the preacher stood between the con- 
gregation and the external world and interpreted its events 
to them. He was their teacher and historian, and exerted 
as direct an influence on citizenship as on moral character. 
The modern clergyman, by a natural process of differentia- 
tion due to the entrance of other educational agencies into 
the life of the community, has become a pastor or moral 
regenerator, and has lost, to a large extent, the function of 
teacher and interpreter of public events. His sermons are 
mere exhortations or short homilies on abstract, moral quali- 
ties, and lack that concrete presentation of prominent events 
of the secular world through which national character is 
formed and social institutions sustained. Thus a gap is 
made in the educational forces of the community which is 
not filled by any conscious agency. 

The family and social life of each community were also in 
early times a great educational force, and, perhaps, the main 
factor in keeping up the race traditions and in maintaining a 
high standard of citizenship. In an age of books and papers, 
we are apt to forget the importance of oral instruction to our 
forefathers, and its influence on the national character. 
Each locality had its traditions and heroes which were a 
part of the folk-lore of the people, and set the standard for 
heroic action. All the events of national or local importance 



24 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

were in this way magnified and visualized until they acquired 
that vitality needed to keep them fresh in the minds of all, 
and to cause them to be transmitted from age to age. Politi- 
cal instincts and race ideals have been formed by these forces. 
But for the educational influence of family life and of local 
environment, the great institutions of the State could not 
have been formed, nor would the love of liberty and inde- 
pendence be so prominent an element of citizenship. The 
citizen was made by the oral instruction and traditions 
of the family and community, and not by books written 
in the great centres of learning, nor by public instruction 
furnished by the State. The isolated localities have been in 
advance of the great centres, and have determined the course 
of national events. 

The extension of elementary instruction, too, has tended 
to lower citizenship by displacing oral home instruction and 
local traditions. The history taught in the school is doubt- 
less more correct and extended than were local traditions, 
but it lacks that vital force so characteristic of foli5:-lore and 
other forms of race knowledge. The full written account of 
a great man or event is insipid when compared with the tale 
of a grandfather who took part in the event or followed the 
hero to victory. The one is a series of details, the other is, 
through visualization, a part of the living present. Com- 
pare the account of the late war in a school history with 
the thrilling narrative of an old soldier. Much more than 
these school histories are needed to keep fresh in the mind 
of every citizen the traditions of the Anglo-American race, 
the deeds of our forefathers, and the events of more recent 
times, thus making them a source of inspiration and a 
standard of political action. 

Both the university specialist and the Extension lecturer 
are engaged in adult education. They are also similar in 
that they are discoverers of new truths, as well as teachers 
of the old. The specialist isolates and analyzes phenomena 
and discovers new processes for investigating them. He 
adds new facts to what is known, and increases our theoretical 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

knowledge. These facts and theories are purely objective 
and show only the external relations existing between things 
and events. The lecturer, however, must take these facts 
and theories and discover the relations existing between them 
and the bodies of knowledge already assimilated by his 
hearers. The subjective unity of facts and events does not 
follow of itself upon the discovery of their objective rela- 
tions. Things may lie isolated in the mind, which are 
bound together by the strongest objective ties, or on the 
contrary, a vital connection may be felt between ideas, which 
have no objective relation. It is the function of the lecturer 
to develop the logic of conviction and to use it rather than 
formal logic in creating a vital relation between the facts he 
wishes to impart to his hearers and their previous knowledge. 
He must leave these facts in their minds, not as mere facts, 
but as part of their organized race knowledge. They must 
feel its reality as they do the parts of the objective world 
with which they come into contact. 

The subjective environment, based on visualized race 
knowledge, is projected into space and becomes as much a 
part of the environment of the individual as any material 
object. He acts in relation to this visualized knowledge as 
though it were a part of the objective world, and had its 
power of regulating and controlling his actions. Reasoned 
serial knowledge predicates time relations and creates a time 
conviction ; but absent time does not have the subjective 
reality of present felt relations. It is out of the existing 
world of feeling and is connected with it by a single chain 
of uncertain strength. Race knowledge creates the convic- 
tion of the actual presence of the object of thought, and 
binds it through strong feelings with other parts of the 
environment. It creates a space conviction through which 
subjective ideas appear as a part of the objective environ- 
ment, and have for the individual all its reality. 

To make his facts partake of this reality is the function 
of the lecturer. He must create from them social ideals 
through which an added force and objectivity is given to 



26 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

social institutions, the standard of citizenship elevated, and 
the defects in national character rectified. In each group of 
events he must find a fit subject for an additional narrative 
in the folk-lore, and in each epoch he must discover the hero 
with qualities worthy of admiration and emulation. Out of 
the data which these facts give, must also come the practical 
principles and maxims, which the hearer can use as a guide 
in his own experience. The specialist finds facts in the 
external void of chaos. The lecturer loses them again in 
the narrative, the epoch, the plot, the drama, the hero, the 
ideal, and the revelation. They give up their isolated exist- 
ence and reappear as parts of the subjective environment. 
Facts as facts have no place outside of the specialist's labora- 
tory. They cannot become part of the race knowledge with- 
out a transformation into some higher form. They are only 
the oil lost in the flame which lights the world. 

It is evident, therefore, that university work divides itself 
into two portions, needing for its execution two distinct 
types of men, — the specialist as explorer and expounder of 
objective facts, and the lecturer as popularizer and creator of 
race knowledge. The work of one must be confined largely 
to the great centres of learning, where the proper facilities 
for work and study are to be found ; the other must come 
into direct contact with the public and carry to it the best 
products of our civilization. The university without efficient 
local organizations through which to impart culture to the 
adult population, is as defective as the church would be, 
having theological schools or religious papers but no local 
organizations or pastors. 

The work of the college professor and Extension lecturer 
overlap somewhat but not to any great extent. It is true 
that often much good can be accomplished by definite spe- 
cialized class work at the Extension centres. But the 
necessity of this is largely due to defects of early education. 
If our school system were as complete as it should be, the need 
of this work would disappear or would become a recognized 
part of the local school system. The true function of 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 27 

University Extension should never be confused with the 
demand for class work, no matter how necessary it may be 
under existing conditions to supply it. 

On the other hand, the need of the lecturer in college, as 
contrasted with the work of the specialist, while vital, is 
not of necessity so great in amount as is usually assumed. 
By far the larger part of it is due to the lack of organized 
efforts in the localities to raise the standard of culture and to 
increase the race knowledge of their citizens. Because of 
these defects in civic life the quantity of race knowledge 
has lagged behind that of specialized knowledge. The 
gulf between them is ever widening, and thus obscures the 
natural relation between the different parts of university 
work. There has not been that transformation of scientific 
facts and objective events into those subjective visualized 
forms through which they become vital parts of our civiliza- 
tion. With the dawn of modern civilization, false ideas of 
adult education diverted the attention of educators from 
race knowledge and dwarfed its growth. The folk-lore has 
diminished rather than increased in quantity ; the popular 
heroes, losing their place at the fireside, are to be found 
only in books ; the epochs in natural history have become a 
mere skeleton to be memorized by school children ; political 
instincts and local traditions slumber from lack of well- 
directed efforts to sustain the spirit of patriotism ; our litera- 
ture does not influence the masses, because there is no 
conscious endeavor to interpret it to them or to raise them 
into an atmosphere where they could assimilate it ; our his- 
tories are not vivid enough to take the citizen out of his 
immediate surroundings and to make him feel the influence 
of the early history of his race and be in touch with its 
epoch-making events. Under these conditions, the student 
comes to college lacking the essential elements of general 
culture. He must be made a citizen before he can be made 
a scholar. Much of the work of the first years of college 
life is simply to supply these defects, and would not be 
necessary if the level of general culture were raised and 



28 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

idce knowledge stood in its proper relation to specialized 
knowledge. The university must therefore increase its 
force of lecturers or diminish the usefulness of its specialists 
by requiring them to furnish the elements of general culture. 
When the university system is well organized, however, the 
lecturer will find his work almost wholly with the public 
and in the localities, thus enabling the specialist to secure 
his students at the great centres of learning fully prepared 
and eager for work, because the motive force is culture and 
not mere discipline. 

The most obvious difference between the Extension lec- 
turer and the college professor engaged in the same class of 
work, is that the former has a mixed audience, having no 
previous training for his work. In addition to his higher 
work, therefore, he must undertake a more modest task of 
hardly less importance. It must always be a function of 
University Extension to enlarge the vocabulary of the peo- 
ple and to give them the definite terms needed to express 
their ideas and to appreciate the ideas of others. Social 
bonds are much weakened by the lack of proper terms to 
express common ideas. Much of our best literature loses its 
force because the words of the author are not associated with 
the right feeling or condition in the reader and hence the 
word does not arouse the proper feeling in his mind. The 
use of slang, oaths and other crude forms of expression 
arise mainly from a lack of words to express different 
shades of feeling. A man who has only a few hundred 
words with which to name objects or to express feelings 
lacks the conditions essential to appreciate a worthy novel, 
poem, or essay, or even an inspiring narrative of deeds 
or events. The extension of scientific ideas is also much 
hindered by the loose popular terminology and the ignor- 
ance of the public of the use of scientific terms. The lec- 
turer must become the school master in this respect, and 
remove these initial difficulties. Words must be made to 
represent definite ideas, and be the vehicles through which 
the ideas, images, and feelings of the speaker or writer gain 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 29 

admittance and find a response in the mind of the hearer. 
Simple lessons in the analysis of thoughts and feelings, 
objects and their relations must precede any valuable work 
in literature or science. Too often, the lack of interest which 
individuals show in higher matters, is due to these initial 
difficulties, which bar the entrance to every kind of serious 
study. Subjects which have inherently a self-sustaining 
interest are regarded as tedious because the style, termi- 
nology, and analysis of the author present insurmountable 
obstacles to the isolated reader. To remove these difficulties 
is the first duty of the lecturer and no function that he can 
perform shows more clearly the superiority of University 
Extension over other plans of increasing popular knowl- 
edge, which do not bring teacher and pupil into close 
contact. 

The great difference, however, between college students 
and an Extension audience lies in the different environment 
of the two classes and in the kind of knowledge with which 
the new facts must be associated in order to be thoroughly 
assimilated. The Extension audience must associate the new 
with the race knowledge, which is a part of their subjective 
environment and not, as a college class would do, with special- 
ized knowledge, the fruit of previous training. The inherent 
qualities of the race must be aroused in them and the new 
and the old must be blended into a higher type of race 
knowledge. The lecturer must rely wholly on present 
interest, keeping the thread of his di.scourse so prominent 
that the interest deepens as the body of related knowledge 
grows. 

The lecturer cannot create an environment for his students 
and isolate them from the world as the college professor can 
do. It is not so much that men are busy but that the enjoy- 
ment of the results of their greater productivity occupies 
their attention more fully during their leisure hours. When 
many pleasures are crowded into a given time a new claim- 
ant must present a .stronger case than is necessary if the 



30 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

leisure time is not so fully occupied.* The busy adult 
differs from the college student, in that his temptation to- 
waste time is greater, or to use it in ways not productive of 
culture. Amusements tend to displace education when life 
is keyed to so high a pitch. 

This intensity of the social environment compels the lec- 
turer to follow the lines of public interest more closely than 
if his students were in the isolated environment of a college. 
The newspaper, for example, must compete with other means 
of creating interest and must to displace them, surpass the 
interest they create. Its news, its narratives, its register of 
crime and scandal must be more interesting than the oral 
gossip which would otherwise engage the attention of the 
community. Having the whole world to draw on for its 
material it can usually find more startling events than those 
which the local gossip can secure, thus diverting the reader 
from the local to the national or cosmopolitan events. The 
lecturer must also compete in the same arena but he does it 
by diverting the attention from present social interests to the 
great epochs of past history, to the causes of national pros- 
perity and to those related bodies of knowledge which help 
the citizen to interpret the events of his own life and age. 
The lecturer must find in his world heroes, plots, and 
dramas, surpassing in interest the material of his rivals. 
Gossip is limited to the events of the locality, the newspapers 
to the events of a day, but he can draw upon the whole his- 
tory of civilization, and bring its events into vital relation 
with the present. With such material he can construct 
epochs and heroes, plots and dramas, theories and ideals of" 
surpassing interest. He must put in the foreground, not 
facts, but ideals, not the connected history, but its great 
epochs, not the details of a narrative, but the plot, not the 
knave, but the hero. The lecturer thus becomes a living 
force with his hearers, and crowds out of their lives many 

* To use an ecouomic illustration : as the margin of the consumption of the- 
individual or of a community rises the less intense pleasures are cut out and a 
new pleasure must be more intense in order to divert the attention from oldeic 
pleasures. See " Theory of Dynamic Economics." Chap. VIII. 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 3 1 

of its worst elements. The standard of excellence demands 
work of such a character that it would remain a living force 
if there were no printing, and events and ideas could survive 
only as folk-lore. Ideas and principles must be stamped 
upon character before they can survive on paper. 

The problems of the lecturer resemble those of the clergy- 
man, who also deals with the adult population in their social 
environment and has to struggle against the intense momen- 
tary pleasures which this environment affords. Religious 
principles and ideals must be presented with increasing 
vigor and be more closely related to the visualized race 
knowledge on religious topics, if the clergy maintain and 
strengthen the church in the more intense social environ- 
ment of the present time. In one respect the clergyman has 
a great advantage over the lecturer. Custom and law have 
reduced the intensity of social life on one day of the week, 
thus giving on this day an ascendency to religious forces. 
There is as yet no educational Sunday to aid the lecturer. 
He must face the most potent social forces and can succeed 
only by exciting a similar interest in his work. 

This increasing interest of social life also affects the 
standard of citizenship. In olden 'times the danger of 
invasion from without and oppression from within were ever 
present evils. Between them they kept the attention con- 
stantly directed toward political life and intensified the 
interest in it, while by checking industrial progress, they 
reduced the intensity of social life. The obstacles to national 
liberty and the means of national defence were vivid and 
objective. The encircling ranges of mountains shut out the 
foreign foe ; this swamp, that lake, yonder ridge or river, 
protected the flank from the enemy ; some well-known 
strait isolated the land ; the mountainous nature of the 
country made invasion impossible ; the castle on the hill 
afforded a safe place for refuge ; the wall of the city, or 
neighboring fortress, gave relief from oppression ; the hero 
who gave liberty, the king who oppressed, the conquering 
general, the .skillful statesman, were all present realities. 



32 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

touching the life of the citizen on many sides. The smaller 
and weaker the nation the more objective does the environ- 
ment become and the more real are the forces which check 
or promote its welfare. They are all vivid realities, vitally 
connected with the interests of the citizen and impressed 
upon his attention by a continuous series of important-events. 
Under these conditions, there was little need of conscious 
political education, as it was forced upon him by the condi- 
tion of his environment. 

The citizen had become so adjusted to the local environ- 
ment that a large portion of his conduct lay within the 
region of instinct. The utilitarian calculus of pleasures and 
pains had been displaced in these cases by psychologic 
motives, demanding a conformity between his conduct and 
the customs and ideals formed through the concrete rela- 
tions between himself and the local environment. His 
morals, politics and social habits had a reason and a cause 
in these relations, but the reason and cause were not the 
conscious motive for action. When the conditions of the 
environment have continued long enough to become idealized 
strong feelings grow up around each ideal, thus creating a 
stronger motive for action than a reasoned calculation of 
results would give.* 

When some new condition in the environment first affects 
a man, he estimates its importance in the direct pleasures 
and pains it affords. This pleasure is its positive utility. f 
Longer contact brings the condition or some of its effects 
into harmonious relation with other conditions and their 
effects. Groups of related pleasures grow up forming com- 
pliments X in the consumption of the individual out of which 
he gets a greater pleasure than he could from the same 

* To understand fully this and the following paragraphs, the reader should study the 
essay already mentioned on the " Economic Courses of the Moral Progress," and also an 
article on the " Scope of Political Economy " in the Yale Revieiv, November, 1893. 

t See University Extension, Vol. II, p. 1S2, for the distinction between posttire 
and absolute utilities. 

|See University Extension, Vol. II, p. 213, et seq., for elementary discussion of 
the formation of complements. 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 33 

elements iu isolation. He now thinks of each element as a 
part of this complement of pleasures and estimates its 
importance through the pleasure of the full complement of 
which it is a necessary part. This utility is its effective 
utility and is measured by what the consumer would lose if 
deprived of it. The calculation is still utilitarian but is 
modified by its complexity, a change being made from a 
direct to an indirect measurement. The lack of supply or 
the growing complexity of social conditions may relate an 
object not merely to a group of pleasures but to the whole 
life of the individual, thus making it an absohite utility. 
The utility of the necessary supply of food, for example, can- 
not be measured quantitatively by its possessor. Social 
progress by visualizing certain subjective conditions makes 
them as real and objective to the individual as the food 
supply and other objective conditions to existence. He can- 
not distinguish between the importance and reality of 
the two. They become blended into one unit of reality and 
are to the same degree absolute utilities to the individual 
and to the society of which he forms a part. They are, 
therefore, outside the realm of quantitative measurement 
and get their motive force from some other principle than 
conscious utilitarianism. 

Thus a realm for higher motives is formed by the growth 
of impulses having no quantitative relations. Through a 
visualization of the conditions creating the absolute utility, 
there grows up a corresponding ideal, and an impulse for its 
realization. These ideals form a part of the subjective 
environment and create motives which induce men to acquire 
the absolute utilities. Pleasures and pains are feelings 
which result from relations existing between the individual 
and the objective environment. Emotions are impulses 
arising from relations existing between the individual and 
his subjective environment. The individual creates his 
subjective environment and binds his conduct to its ideals 
and principles through strong irresistible impulses. The 
act follows directly upon the perception of the condition 



L;^ 



IC 



34 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 

requiring action. Impulses are of one dimension and lack 
the quantitative relations characteristic of feelings of pleasure 
and pain. 

The conduct of an individual is, therefore, determined 
either by impulses arising from relations between him and 
his subjective environment or by quantitative feelings of 
pleasures and pains, due to the relation between him and the 
objective environment. The realm of the two classes of 
motives correspond to the extent of the two kinds of 
environment. Static social conditions permit the growth of 
the subjective environment — the realm of instinctive action. 
New social conditions destro)'- a part of the old subjective 
environment, increase the importance of objective relations, 
and extend the realm of conduct determined by a calculation 
of pleasures and pains. 

The great social changes of this century have in this way 
increased the realm of conscious calculation and strengthened 
the tendency in men to regulate their conduct by strictly 
utilitarian standards. The growth of industrial relations 
in complexity and extent, the removal of the physical 
obstacles to the free movement of men and commodities, 
the increase of security and prosperity and the formation 
of great States have broken down the old local environ- 
ment and with it has gone the basis upon which a large 
portion of the subjective environment rested. Many 
old ideals have lost their vividness, thus destroying the 
motive force of the political, moral and social instincts 
depending upon them. The warship and the soldier, the 
hero and the statesman, are seen only in pictures ; the Presi- 
dent and Congress are in a distant city ; there are no local 
traditions of heroic acts ; no historic scenes to connect the 
present with the past ; no mountains, lakes, or straits are 
needed to give a feeling of security ; legislative halls are con- 
nected with corruption and bribery, and not with deeds of 
patriotism ; no fear of foreign invasion, domestic oppression, 
or of grievous taxation disturbs the tranquillity of industrial 
life ; liberties seem natural and not dearly bought rights, and 



THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 35 

the constitution is only a part of an uninteresting book. 
When a nation becomes strong, its position secure, and its 
unity organic, the national traditions and ideas lose their 
objectivity and vividness and sink in the relative scale of 
wants. The tendency to determine conduct by the utili- 
tarian calculus is strengthened, and its use extended to large 
portions of conduct formerly out of its realm. 

This measured conscious attitude has extended so far as 
to bring even matters of diet under its control. The changes 
in the food supply have been so great and rapid that the 
instinctive impulses for food are no longer safeguards to 
health. Food must be measured and weighed, and its rela- 
tive constituents determined by some objective tests. In 
morals, also, ideals and instincts are becoming dormant and 
the summing of pleasures and pains a growing criterion of 
action. The growth of cosmopolitan influences, strength- 
ened by the immigration of so many foreigners, cause us to 
question our religious habits and customs and weigh them 
solely in the utilitarian balance. The closing of the World's 
Fair on Sunday would, an age ago, have been determined by 
impulse and emotion ; now it is decided by a civil court on 
utilitarian principles. We have learned not only to do in 
Rome as the Romans do, but to do the same things at home, 
if prompted by our individual inclination. Old customs and 
ideals, based upon inherited ideals cannot stand such tests, 
because the conditions in the objective environment creating 
them, have been removed by social progress. Intense social 
feelings now have few checks in the realm of the higher 
social sciences. 

The necessity arises, therefore, to extend the realm of 
those sciences, in which conduct is determined by the har- 
mony between it and the ideals of the subjective environment 
and not by the direct relation between the individual and 
his objective environment. The reformation of a subjective 
environment in harmony with the new conditions and 
boundaries of the social world will not come of itself, or at 
least not until many ages of slow evolution have taught 



36 UNIV15RSITY EXTENSION. 

humanity what are the absolute utilities of this new world,:, 
and have forced upon them ideals and instincts needed to 
shut these absolute utilities out of the realm of calculation. 
This progress can be hastened by conscious education, thus 
avoiding much of the misery and suffering which purely 
evolutionary processes necessitate. Organized and persistent 
efforts should be made to revive and perpetuate the tradi- 
tions and ideals of the race, to extend race knowledge, 
to increase the amount of related knowledge, to create a 
new folk-lore and to raise a standard of citizenship. By 
these means the realm of the higher social sciences can be 
extended and new absolute utilities created through which 
the influence of the intense positive utilities of social life 
will be limited to a much smaller part of the whole realm 
of conduct. 

There is, therefore, a great present need of an educational 
agency to secure these results. University Extension must 
do for general history, recent events, and the enlarged national 
environment, what oral instruction did for the local events 
and surroundings. The new environment must be related 
to the citizen, visualized and made concrete and objective. 
National institutions, cosmopolitan ideals, and anew morality 
must be made as vivid and real as were local forces they 
displaced. Not merely a county or a State, but all Europe 
and America must be put in concrete relations to each 
citizen. He must be made to realize his present social rela- 
tions and feel as much in touch with distant events and 
places, as with those of his own locality. Intensity and 
objectivity will then be restored to the emotions, instincts 
and ideals of the subjective environment, thus giving them 
once more a dominant place in the national character. 

Simon N. Patten. 

University of Pennsylvania. 



LBAp'05 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS I 



029 918 019 

WJ 



MSM 




